Packaging solutions continue to evolve to meet the increasingly stringent design constraints imposed by electronic devices and systems with ever higher integrated circuit (IC) densities. One approach to enabling higher density “three-dimensional (3D)” packaging of multiple IC chips together, for example, typically utilizes one or more interposers to mediate transfer of chip-to-chip and/or chip to package electrical signals. For instance, two or more IC chips having a reduced pitch size may be connected by micro-bumps to an interposer, while the interposer may be electrically connected to the semiconductor package by conventional solder balls. As the IC chips are fabricated at ever smaller process technology nodes, however, even the increased densities enabled by micro-bump scale physical connections will be unable to accommodate the further reductions in pitch size.
An alternative to the use of small electrical contact bodies, such as micro-bumps, is to produce electrical connections without any physical contact between the IC chip and the interposer. For example, various capacitive and inductive schemes for providing “contactless” electrical connections have been proposed. However, in practice, such approaches have been plagued by excessive noise and interference when implemented at high densities.